Outdoorsmen Adventures.com

It may not look like it right now, but the Spring Snow goose season is underway.

With all the snow thats covering the upper Midwest, many are wondering if there will be many geese coming through our area.

Today the tempoerature is in the mid 40’s, which will help cut the snow as will the rain that’s predicted this weekend.

Right now it sounds as if a lot of Snow geese are stacked up in northern Kansas and Southern Nebraska waiting for the snow to melt before they head north.

Snow geese unlike their darker cousins don’t need open water as they’d just as soon set in a flooded field as on a lake or pond.

What they do require is food and all of… Continue reading

When Duane Filsinger, Butte Nebraska and his son headed out on their spring turkey hunt last spring, the farthest thing from their mind was taking the highest scoring Merriam ever taken with a firearm that was recorded by the National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF).

Well that’s just what they did, putting Duane’s name at the top of the NWTF list for Merriam turkeys.

Like most of the state, Northeast Nebraska has as excellent turkey population, with the majority of the birds found in the area being Merriam.

Merriam turkeys are similar in many ways to the other species of turkeys such as the Eastern, Rio Grande and Osceola, which, all can be found in the United States.

Adult Merriam males are easily distinguished from these species, but closely resemble the Gould turkey of Mexico except that they have a blacker appearance with the lower back and tail margins on the Merriam are nearly white.

The Merriam’s original territory was Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, but through stocking programs the birds were stocked out of their original Rocky Mountain terrain.… Continue reading

There’s nothing more exciting than calling predators as you never know what might come calling, as there are all types of predators out there.

That’s what we found out a couple of weeks ago when we called predators in the Sandhills near Mullen, NE.

The word predator is defined as: a carnivore, an animal that lives by capturing and eating other animals.

According to that definition, a predator can be any number of things.

When it gets right down to it, we humans are predators as are mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes, fox, badgers as well as lions and tigers and bears “OH My”.

Depending on the location you’re doing the calling from, you might be surprised by what comes to the call.

Of course these aren’t the only critters that, once hearing the sound of distressed rabbit, fawn or other animal, will come running to investigate, taking advantage of another animals unfortunate situation.

It’s not unusual for deer, which are curious critters to come into a predator call as it has happened to us numerous times, especially when you’re in Mule Deer territory.

There are numerous other animals/birds out there that are opportunists and will eat what ever happens to be available.

Raccoons and skunks are a couple of the furry critters that will come in if they’re within hearing distance as well as hawks, eagles and owls, so you need to be ready for almost anything.… Continue reading

Reprinted from the Sioux City Journal

MULLEN, Neb. — Gary Howey spotted the coyote first. It was so far away it looked like a black spot moving across the snow.

Andy Glidden stopped the truck and we watched the dog cross the flat and disappear into the hills.

“We have permission to hunt that ranch,” Andy said.

We drove on, found a gate and entered the property.

We drove in about a quarter mile then parked the truck in a depression and began walking.

We were looking for a good place to set up, but that wasn’t happening.

We walked on.

Suddenly two doe mulies popped up on a hillside one hundred yards away.

We froze. If those deer spooked, our chances at the coyote would diminish. After looking us over for several minutes, the does trotted off, unalarmed.

Then we found the spot. The hillside dropped away onto a flatland and we set up the Fox Pro electronic caller and went to work.

“Coyote at 11 o’clock,” Andy said a few moments later. “200 yards.”

He had come in from our left side and managed to almost get downwind before we saw him.… Continue reading

A potential new Nebraska state record whitetail deer was taken in Richardson County.  It’s estimated that the buck, a 38 pointer was 7-8 years old.

It was well after noon when we arrived at the Sandhills Motel in Mullen, NE. www.gliddencanoerental.com which would be our headquarters for our first Midwinter predator hunt of 2010.

After unloading our extra gear and changing into our snow camo, we pointed the pickup south out into the Sandhills where we’d look for areas the cattle were using as cattle always attract coyotes.

As we turned off the blacktop, proceeding through the Sandhills, I spotted something working its way across the alfalfa field to our left.

Through our binoculars, we spotted the first coyote of the trip hunting his way through the meadow.

He headed west into the hills, so we tried to figure out how far ahead of it we’d have to be in order to set up and call.

A gate ½ mile down the road was the only entry into the field, so we drove in, parked the pickup and proceeded to hike off across the hills looking for a spot suitable for calling.

Calling coyotes is not all that difficult; it all depends on the terrain you’re hunting and the number of individuals you need to hide.… Continue reading

The 31st annual Cork Thornton Memorial Ice Fishing Tournament which is sponsored by the Valentine Chamber of Commerce
was held January 24th on Merritt Resrvoir located south of Valentine, NE.

Thirty-six two man teams, representing three states entered in the event this year.

The teams not only had to compete with each other, they also had to contend with 50 MPH wind gusts.

The North Platte, NE. team, Drew Armstrong and Andy Young took 13.84 lbs. of fish from the 40′ depths on the Snake Arm using jigs tipped with minnows.

The 2nd place team also fished in the Snake Arm. Dan Priel, Cambridge, NE. and his partner Ken Priel came in with 10.11 lbs

In third place was the father/son team of Ted & Nathan Lindstedt from Cozad, NE. who caught 8.23 lbs of fish.

Finishing in 4th place were last years championship team of Scott & Monte Mares, Lincoln, NE. with 8:01 lbs.

In fifth place was a team from Thedford, NE. Russ and Rich Reiser took fifth place with 5.84 lbs.… Continue reading

Reprinted from the Sioux City Journal

It was a quiet, late November afternoon when Ron Peterson, publisher of the Journal walked into my office in the newsroom.

He sat in the chair across from my desk where, as editor of the newspaper, I was scanning our news budget before heading up the meeting with the floor editors to decide what the next day’s paper would look like.

“What would you think of producing an outdoor tabloid which we distribute free throughout our area?” he asked.

As the paper’s outdoor writer since 1973, it didn’t take long for me to answer.

“I think it would be a great idea,” I said.

And so it started, a free tabloid devoted to teaching Siouxlanders more about hunting and fishing in our area and throughout the upper Midwest.

The first issue, one of six to be published each year, hit the streets in late January of 2004.

The cover photo was of Dave Genz, known as the father of modern day ice fishing. He was on the ice holding a walleye. I had taken that photo a year earlier on Devil’s Lake in North Dakota.

The whole issue was devoted to ice fishing .… Continue reading

As I sat on the porch at Big Blue Lodge, a full moon appeared on the horizon adding it’s  illumination to the light being dispersed by the millions of stars in the sky that night.

It was a stargazers dream, one that’s quite common in Nebraska and one that few people living in the large cities on either coast had ever had the opportunity to gaze upon.

As daybreak finally arrived and the sun popped up over the horizon, we were greeted by 50-degree temperatures with an afternoon forecast predicted to reach up into the 70’s.

And what’s so great about that? Well, we were about to head into the field to hunt pheasants at the Nebraska Governor’s Hunt in November, the time of the year when folks up north are usually wearing stocking caps, gloves and long johns were in order, not the short sleeve shirts and tee shirts that we were wearing.

It was a beautiful day to be outdoors, and the hunting only made it better. It was one of those perfect days in the outdoors, one of those days you’ve always dreamed about.

The Governor’s Pheasant Hunt is a team event with five members on a team.  It’s a one-box hunt, which means that each team receives 25 shells in order to bag their 15-bird limit.

Shells can be divided up amongst the team members any way that they wish and the team that checks in with the most birds shot using the least shells is declared the winner.

Teams are assigned a guide, scorer and are allowed to have two dogs on the ground at one time.… Continue reading

The Big O crankbait is a fishing lure with a storied past going back nearly 45 years. It’s still my first choice of smallmouth crankbaits on the channelized Missouri and elsewhere. (Journal photo by Larry Myhre) Reprinted from the Sioux City Journal

I’d like to have a penny for every time I’ve cast out a Big O crankbait.

Oh, I’d still be sittin’ here writin’ fishing stories, but the view would be a lot better. West Okoboji lakefront is what I’m thinking.

But, back to reality. Back to the Big O, one fine fish catching machine.

I first used the Big O back in the mid 1970s. In those days I opened the bass fishing season on Lake Geneva in Minnesota every year.

The Big O was my go-to crankbait then and, I’m here to tell you, it still is today.

The Big O has a long and proud history.

The lure, which is made of plastic today, was originally carved of Balsa wood. Fred Young carved the first Big O lure in 1967.

Fred’s brother Odis field tested the lures. He was six feet, six inches tall so it is easy to see how the lure got its name.… Continue reading